


Pray you, love, remember

by gordonandgrayson



Category: Hamlet - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Gen, very little of anyone else, very ophelia centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 04:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4045537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gordonandgrayson/pseuds/gordonandgrayson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite her aching heart and her shattered mind, Ophelia manages to find a flower for everyone around her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pray you, love, remember

**Author's Note:**

> Basically just a look at how Ophelia is relating to the people around her during the flower distribution.

 

  1. rosemary, for remembrance




she remembers all too well these days. it’s all she does. she thinks of days, long ago, in a simpler time. she remembers the days when he wrote her poems that spoke of a love deeper than the sea and as infinite as space and when he spoke to her with kindness and there was no hatred in his heart. she remembers the nights when he would whisper promises of love and of loyalty to her.

she also remembers his madness, his cruelty and his caustic tirades. but she prefers to think of him as he was. before.

either way, it is of no matter because he has gone from here and left her to remember him.

  1. pansies, for thoughts




her mind is but a jumble of lovers and fathers and murder and betrayal, but in her rare moments of clarity, she thinks that maybe her brother was right, all those days ago, that she should have been more careful, more chaste, but she loved and she lost and here she is now

and here he is now, and his grief threatens to overwhelm her and so she retreats from her thought back to the safety and the simplicity of her madness

she watches blankly as he crumbles and stitches himself back together and she thinks that if he could he would tear the whole of Denmark apart, all to have his broken family back.

  1. fennel and columbine, for deceit and ingratitude




all of the lies and deceit in her life seem to run into one enormous betrayal and she can’t manage to put all of the pieces together but she thinks it all began with the King and with the murder of Hamlet’s father. the murder of a father is something she understands well now, and she almost forgives Hamlet when the King approaches her, to blame her father’s murder for her condition, when she knows it began with the King.

and through the fog of madness one thing seems to cut clear through: the King’s convoluted pursuit of Hamlet was based around his love for her, and what does she have to show for her own part in the tragedy? a dead father, an absent lover and a mind too full of grief to hate

  1. rue, for regret




she has too many regrets, too many to name, but she starts with her gender. she regrets her powerlessness and her lack of control. she regrets the choices that were made for her and she regrets the future she was robbed of.

the Queen watches her with what may be sympathy and she knows that the Queen regrets those things as well. they are both women, after all, and so maybe the Queen understands her better the she knows.

she thinks of Hamlet again, and she knows that the Queen regrets the future stolen from her son as well

  1. violets, for faithfulness




at one time she was surrounded by her family and her lover and a royal court and she was everything she should be and she was almost happy,

but that is nothing but a memory, distant and almost a dream because now all of her good fortune has withered. her family is broken and gone, her lover is a madman, and her royal court is in shambles.

she looks to see no one beside her, and she resigns herself to an existence of wandering madness and songs of her sorrow

  1. the willow tree, for mourning




she is tired now, too tired to swim to the shore and she thinks of Hamlet and she thinks of her father and of her brother but most of all she thinks of sleep and thinks of flowers and of peace

and she feels herself slipping and finally, finally, Ophelia allows the murky depths to pull her from this hell and into its cold embrace.

 


End file.
